Letters: from Atlantis by Robert Silverberg fits into the science-fiction genre category for many reasons. It involves time travel from the future to the past. It also engages "aliens from another domain" that make the book even more scientifically fictitious towards the conclusion of the novel. Letters: from Atlantis is a science-fiction novel because it contains "made-up nonsense" words used in almost all other science-fiction stories. However, it is more than just a usual 150-page science-fiction book. The setting, style, and author are important literary elements that make this book extremely spectacular, powerful, and distinctive from other books.
Letters: from Atlantis is first set in the late 21st Century. Scientists in the future develop a type of time travel in which the traveler's consciousness is transferred into the mind of someone actually living in the past- a useful way to observe history first hand. After Roy, the main character of the novel, is sent through this "Time Machine", he ends up in the ancient land of Atlantis: The Lost Empire, around the year 18, 862 B.C., about 20, 000 years before the late 21st Century. Atlantis is speculated to be located in present- day Brittany or Normandy, France. His lover, Lora, was sent into the mind of a provincial governor in present day Poland or Prussia around the same time Roy was sent. .
The author, Robert Silverberg, keeps readers interested in the story because of the very figurative descriptions and language of events, characters, and places. He also leaves many cliffhangers, instilling the desire to keep reading. These cliffhangers leave pictures in the readers" minds that help predict what is to happen next, and about what just happened while reading. For example, when Roy was sending his first letter to Lora, the main aspect to wonder about was how the letter would get to Lora, and if there would be any conflict with the letter being sent between Prince Ram (prince in which Roy is inside of) and other Athilantan (native inhabitants of Atlantis) occupants.
